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TFM MD'S musical approach and recording technqs

Topic started by UV (@ 138.88.107.150) on Sun Feb 3 14:58:08 EST 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Here we will discuss constructively about the various trends in compsoing,recording techniqs,methods that existed,adopted,tried and being introduced by all our MDS with major focus IR nd ARR followed by others.
Hopefully those who read the postings will get an idea about Music making and thats its an art of the highest creativity of human mind.
And not mere digital gadgetry or synth music

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: hihi:-) (@ 128.111.113.76) on: Thu Feb 7 18:08:56 EST 2002
  
  One of my favourite Rock Band 'Scorpions' (German) done new album which so far only few have attempted its fusion of Rock and Symphony
  
  electric light orchestra (ELO) was a famous rock group which used to have a big orchestra on the stage. one of their famous "productions" was their interpretations of beethovan's fifth. hunt it down. it's a valuable one to have.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 151.201.225.222) on: Thu Feb 7 19:19:50 EST 2002
  
  Sam, Rhythm programming: As we sequnce a song in a sequencer we can also program the percussion track for a song using a drum machine.
  kodambakkam call it as a a rhythm box.
  Generally a drum track is made up of somthing called as "patterns", pattern is a set of drum sound(s) that is played in a bar (or more). Drum machines often comes with bunch of preset patterns, some musicians use this ready made patterns to create a song. Something like built in beats in casios.
  
  But some musicians sit and program each and every pattern based on the song.
  The second one is little more creative. As we need to program the beats based on the song track and make sure it not mechanical, often many mds in tamil film music end up in mechanical beat formation.
  We can easily find this out - pattern dont change any where in the song.
  
  But things change a lot if a powerful/good drummer programs the drum machine, A geniune drummer (like sivamani or ranjith bharoth) will know how to use the drum sounds properly. If you see a natural drummer can play only 4 tones at a time, (assuming he has 2 legs and 2 hands), this plays a part in programming. A non drum will place sounds that is not possible by a real drummer, like a ride cymbal, hihats strikes and snare drum together. , you cannot do this manually, how can you play the snare when you ride the cymbol with one hand and other hand busy with close hit hats? , this should balanced, only a drummer can think these things better, so when sivamani programs a drum part, it sound more natural than a non-drummer programing it.
  hear "hamma hamma" some sounds are really placed well for the drum or for that matter "samba samba" in the pallavi the drum programming is really exciting to hear.
  
  Famous drum machine during IR period was Roland R8. There are nice groove boxes from korg, emu suited more for hiphop(phat kind of sounds)
  There is an AKAI sample based drum groove box, one of the best but complicated to use. In simple works, It takes in any sound sample and makes it a percussion instrument.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 151.201.225.222) on: Thu Feb 7 19:39:30 EST 2002
  
  kiru,ofcourse it can be played in background over many instruments.
  
  To do this let us see more midi usually midi is made up 16 channels. we called 16 part midi, meaning you can play 16 track a given point of time, now question come, what is restriction on number of notes , this depends on ployphony capcacity of the notes, say 64 notes.. We can play 64 notes spread across 16 tracks, what happens if you have more notes , midi will ignore the higest note and it will not sound.
  
  Now this 16 tracks or channel can contain any instrument including percussion, as a std channel 10 is often reserved for percussion track.
  
  there are some keyboards which take 32 parts meaning 32 midi channels. You get more instruments, so when you sequence you need to consider..midi channel, port number (means if you have 32 instead of 16, the port number will select which group of 16).
  
  in a keyboard like triton which has only 16 part midi, can play back 16 channels, since it has an sampler, you can take a wav file (upto 16mb) and assign it to a midi channel which will then behave like a reguar instrument. however we need to edit this loop to proper bpm etc,
  
  Now a thozil ragasiyam:
  Check my "bharatha desam" song in my website, the carnatic percussion are broken into 2, I used a base loop for miruduangam, recorded using a mirudangam player long time ago for someother song. To make it more natural and to cover the "boring" loop, I added fillings in the same kind of timberes to make it sound more like a real player playing it. Most taught it was real player playing it, how ever, I never commited this to be on safer side. :):)
  I will try to upload the loop alone when i get time. Making east-Indian percussion loops is big business now.
  
  
• From: Shaym Ganapathi (@ 12.22.60.1) on: Thu Feb 7 20:20:09 EST 2002
  
  Srikanth, nice analysis. my two cents on this topic as I play in the LA area quite often and have some sort of a studio for myself.
  
  Traditionally MDs like IR (I consider him as an exception) have the full score before the recording. This will be a one time affair. All instrumentalists would know exactly what is needed. He is a perfectionist. A song once recorded on a 7 am to 7 pm session, is over. The producer/director gets his song tape.
  
  With the advent of technogy - the digital stuff and sound cards, people like ARR record the song once, and then start 'improvising'. I bet every pie that ARR does not - definitely not - know what the song looks like in the end - he would only know the tune in the beginning. Hence i CANNOT call him a true composer (sorry for the digression) as he searches for other's recorded patterns (loops) and inserts them. You can argue he is very clever and intelligent etc becuase you need to know what to insert and where. But he does not compose these notes!! this is my point!!
  
  A composer like Bach etc. can play the whole instruments and their notes in their mind and then write the score. IR does the same.
  
  ARR first componses the tune - the main instrument, adds singers (one at a time) and then starts his experimentation with the tons of CDs he gets from abroad.
  
  If we are just talking about the merits of digital technology and recording technique - extremely sorry for the digression. There is'nt any body like ARR, I agree. Kudos to him, the techonology has improved a lot. I agree with your statement that there should have been 10000 ARRs as these CDs are available to everybody. This is where he stands out. People like YSR and HJs are catching up. They blend creativity (of using these samplers bought from NY and London) and knowledge of music and instruments (read technology). This where ARR scores from every body else.
  
  My two cents.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 151.201.225.222) on: Thu Feb 7 20:42:26 EST 2002
  
  Why ir, even msv knowns what is the finished product when he comes to record.
  
  mordern musicians argue following this path restricts the "creativity" within 7to7 time frame.
  simply Brains thinks million different way. There is no hard and fast rule that says a composer should know the song before in hand
  once agian i tell a composer does not become superior or inferior by following certain methods.
  
  We are here to discuss musical techs used by different mds, not here to argue, who is better or poor or who is true composer or not for that a matter arr never claimed he is one till date.
  So is IR. Shyam, I feel your posting is outof context here. Especically the reference to bach, IR follow more the beethoven way, he just writes his backgrounds, which has it its own merit and demerits. Which i can talk to pages, our goalhere to see what are technology our guys use. thats it.
  As a true music fans we have to approach this without any bias.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 151.201.225.222) on: Thu Feb 7 20:51:45 EST 2002
  
  also shayam we need to remember
  there is world which is amazed by IRs approach to music , likewise there another world which is amazed by ARR way.
  I dont try to decide for others.
  Let us discuss "good" about these extraordinary musicians we have, The bad parts can be ignored.
  as this is very subjective the good parts.
  guys please continue, (please no ir vs arr vs msv :)
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Thu Feb 7 21:42:25 EST 2002
  
  Srikanth..I know you will bring in MSV :) just kidding:) I thought you might find this interesting. I was reading some writings of IR in the context of sivAji ganEsan. Believe me they seem to have a very good friendship. It seems when sivAji heard the mudhal mariyAdhai songs..he started singing/giving examples from GR, MSV, CRS etc and said .."ivangellAm creatorsda..neeyum ivanga varisaiyiLe sErnthuttada rAja". IR seems to be delighted by this compliment. He is quite content to be in that company alone. So I am thinking IR himself would find comparisons between him and MSV appalling. So hopefully there will be no wars !!!
  
  Still since we are talking about 'TFM MDs musical approach and recording techniques' . I also see a fundamental difference between ARR's and IR's.
  
  On the topic of 'composition', I want to share some thoughts on this. I was reading a book on Mozart, and following Eine Kliene NachtMusik bar by bar (that I didnt get past 10 or so bars is a different issue). Man..the notes are laid out in mathematical precision. In the first 4 bars all instruments play the same notes (unison) in the next two bars the notes are symmetrical across half bars etc. Do you think people get this sort of symmetry by just playing/improvising ? In software, you know architects are also doing similar stuff ..not much programming but only designing. Since you are also a composer and programmer (till you become a MD :)) please share your views with us.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Thu Feb 7 21:56:33 EST 2002
  
  BTW, why is there no kick drum in the bAratha dEsam song ? :) :) :)
  
  
• From: Sam (@ 132.235.18.15) on: Fri Feb 8 00:06:42 EST 2002
  
  Shyam, I don think that ARR's approach towards composing is just a main tune and then fill the song with loops at the right places. This may be seen in some of the songs but I don think albums like PP, TT, iruvar, Pudhiya mugam, DSKR, Duet etc.. or songs like kannalane, KK title song, kadhal sadugudu, anbay from rhythm etc..reflect this approach. I don think these are just assortments of different sounds, just thrown up together to make it a song, there is some connection, some relevance between each part in these songs. Again having the whole picture in mind before recording is debatable, PROBABLY raja stops composing by the time he gets ready to record, and AR starts gettin into the groove when he starts recording and stops composing by the time he is done with his recording.
  
  A genral question,
  Say, the composer is composing a counterpoint, Can someone tell me which is more probable and common of these two scenarios;
  
  1. The composer gets both the melodies at the same time, i.e. he starts thinking of a melody and he can hear the other melody also at the same time in his mind.
  
  2. The composer gets done with the first melody line, then he sits again and starts for the second line so that it will match the first melody in accordance to contrapuntal principles.
  
  If the second case is more common, then I can think composers can get this sort of symmetry by playing and improvising.
  
  Again this is my thinking, I am not that knowledgable so I may be wrong.
  
  
  
• From: Sam (@ 132.235.18.15) on: Fri Feb 8 11:20:38 EST 2002
  
  Singer shreeni abt Rahman's approach.
  
  http://indolink.com/tamil/cinema/People/2000/June/srinivas.html
  
  
  Another thing I think is Raja usually conducts his own orchestra, but Srinivas murthy does it for Rahman, and Guitar Prassanna did it for the theme music in Lagaan.
  Srikanth and others cud u pls throw in more light on how these things go about in the industry?
  
  

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